Casing-carrier assembly and method

ABSTRACT

A natural casing is shirred onto a self-supporting tubular carrier member. The carrier member is formed of an extruded plastic material, such as polyethylene, which has an inherent elastic memory, and which is served along its length prior to the placement of the casing thereon. The elastic memory of the material causes the wall portion adjacent one side of the line of severance to curl beneath the wall portion at the other side of the line of severance, so that the carrier member assumes a generally frusto-conical configuration. The inner diameter of the casing is larger than the small diameter portion of the carrier member so that the casing can be readily shirred thereon, although the inner diameter of the casing is smaller than the larger diameter portion of the carrier member to prevent axial displacement therefrom. A holding member is provided at the small diameter end of the carrier member to positively retain the casing in place.

30, 1974 R. M. LEVACO 3,826,853

CASING-CARRIER ASSEIBLY AND METHOD Original Filed Oct. 28. 1971 "I IIUnited States Patent f 3,826,853 CASING-CARRIER ASSEMBLY AND METHODRobert M. Levaco, San Francisco, Calif., assiguor to Oppenheimer CasingCo. Original application Oct. 28, 1971, Ser. No. 193,530. Divided andthis application Feb. 16, 1972, Ser.

Int. Cl. A22c 13/00 US. Cl. 426-132 5 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREA natural casing is shirred onto a self-supporting tubular carriermember. The carrier member is formed of an extruded plastic material,such as polyethylene, which has an inherent elastic memory, and which issevered along its length prior to the placement of the casing thereon.The elastic memory of the material causes the wall portion adjacent oneside of the line of severance to curl beneath the -wall portion at theother side of the line of severance, so that the carrier member assumesa generally frusto-conical configuration. The inner diameter of thecasing is larger than the small diameter portion of the carrier memberso that the casing can be readily shirred thereon, although the innerdiameter of the casing -is smaller than the larger diameter portion ofthe carrier member to prevent axial displacement therefrom. A holdingmember is provided at the small diameter end of the carrier member topositively retain the casing in place.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELA'IIED APPLICATION This application is adivisional application of commonly assigned application Ser. No.193,530, filed Oct. 28, 197 1.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates in general to thesausage manufactur-ing art. Specifically, the invention relates to anovel carrier-casing assembly and method, and to the novel relationshipbetween the assembly and sausage stuffing methods and apparatus.

The invention of the present application has particular utility withnatural casings, i.e., those prepared from the edible intestines ofanimals such as sheep, lamb, or hogs as opposed to artificial orsynthetic casings, such as those formed of regenerated cellulose. Thepresent invention may also have applicability with collagen casings,particularly when it is desired to have a firm support for the casing.

'In the natural casing industry, it 'is conventional to ship the casingsgreat distances before they are actually stuffed to form a sausage typeproduct. For example, it is common for US. sausage manufacturers toutilize casings from sheep that are raised and slaughtered in Australiaand New Zealand. Because of the fragile nature of the intestines, andthe necessity to thoroughly cleanse and preserve the same prior toshipment, various expedients have been utilized in the past to improvethe packing and shipping characteristics of natural casings. However,the prior art techniques, which to a certain extent have solved theshipment and storage problems, have complicated the handling of thecasings by the sausage manufacturer, With the net result that many manhours are lost in preparing the casings for the stufiing operation.

For example, it has been known in the past to initially clean thenatural casings, and to subsequently store and ship the same in a saltsolution in a sealed barrel. This usually results in the casingsbecoming entangled with one another, and it is a time-consuming andtroublesome task for the sausage manufacturer to individualize thecasings upon receipt. Furthermore, the casings must be thoroughly3,826,853 Patented July 30, 1974 washed to remove any excess salt, andto place the casings in a condition suitable for stufling.

To obviate the very substantial handling problems mentioned in thepreceding paragraph, heretofore in the natural casing industry, it hasbeen conventional to shirr a casing onto a limber, film-like plastictube, and to form the tube into a loop. The opposite ends of the loopare then connected to one another, as by heat sealing, or by some formof a mechanical interlock to retain the casing in place on the flexibletube. This expedient had reduced some of the sausage manufacturershandling problems, since the casings are maintained in an individualizedand untangled condition. However, this expedient has not proven entirelysatisfactory, since an undesirably large amount of time is required todisconnect the ends of the film-like flexible carrier member, and toplace the same on the stuffing horn of a stutfing machine.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The casing-carrier assembly of the presentinvention obviates the problems noted above, in that in addition toproviding a means whereby the casings are maintained in an untangledcondition, it also provides a means whereby the casing can be directlyplaced upon the stufiing horn of a stufiing machine without thenecessity of performing any intermediate manipulative steps. Theresulting time savings and increased production speeds are substantial.

The carrier member of the present invention is a selfsupporting tubularmember that positively supports the casing thereon during shipment andstorage. The carrier member has a smooth outer surface and may have asmooth inner surface, with the smooth inner surface facilitatingtelescopic insertion over the stufiing horn of a stufling machine, andwith the smooth outer surface facilitating payout of the casing duringthe stuffing operation. The carrier member is generally frusto-conicallyshaped throughout at least a major portion of its length, so as to beshaped generally complementarily with the tapered stuffing hornsconventionally used in commercially available stuffing machines.

The carrier member is preferably formed of a suitable plastic material,such as polyethylene, that is extruded so as to give the carrier memberan inherent elastic memory. The frusto-conical configuration ispreferably produced by slitting the extruded, cylindrical tubular memberalong a major portion of its length, and displacing the edge portions ofthe wall on opposite sides of the slit, so that the portion of the wallon one side of the slit tends to curl under the wall portion at theopposite side of the slit. The amount of curl progressively increasesoutwardly of the end of the slit to the end of the carrier member, withthe small diameter portion of the carrier member being substantiallysmaller than the internal diameter of the casing at its smallest portionto facilitate shirring of the casing onto the carrier member. The largediameter portion of the carrier member adjacent the unslit,circumferentially continuous end is larger than the internal diameter ofthe casing to prevent the casing from being displaced axially from thecarrier member in one direction. Retention means, such as an aperturedholding member, is placed on the small diameter portion of the carriermember to prevent axial movement of the casing in an opposite direction,so that the casing is positively restrained against movement in bothdirections. Since the carrier members are generally frusto-conicallyshaped,

they lend themselves to compact nesting in a shipping container, sincethe larger diameter portions of the carrier members may be placedadjacent to the small diameter portions of other casing members, andvise versa.

In order to use the casing, it is necessary only for the sausagemanufacturer to remove a carriercasing assembly, and telescopinglyengage the casing member with the stufiing horn of a stuffing machine.The inner diameter of the large diameter end of the carrier member issubstan tially larger than the outer diameter of the outer end of thestufiing horn, so that the carrier member may be readily slid thereover.The inner diameter of the small diameter portion of the carrier memberis less than the outer diameter of the small diameter portion of thestuffing horn, so that as the carrier member is placed on the stuffinghorn, the slit wall portion of the carrier member is spread slightly.Because of the inherent elastic memory of the material of the carriermember, a compressive force is applied to the stufling horn thatpositively retains the carrier member in place. The carrier memberpreferably has a length that is less than the stuffing horn, so that aportion of the stufling horn is exposed outwardly of the small diameterend of the carrier member to prevent dislodgment of the carrier memberduring the stufiing operation.

As will be readily apparent from the above summary, and the followingdetailed description, the simplified nature of the carrier-casingassembly of the present invention reduces the number of manipulativesteps that must be performed by the sausage manufacturer to an absoluteminimum, with the net result that a substantial increase in productivityis obtained.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a side elevational view,partially in cross section, illustrating the carrier-casing assembly ofthe present invention in place on the stufiing horn of a stuflingmachine;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of the carriercasing assemblyillustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged cross sectional view through the stufiing horn andcarrier-casing assembly of the present invention, taken generally alongline 3-3 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the tubular carrier member prior toperformance of the severing step; and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the tubular carrier member subsequent tothe performance of the severing step.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT While this invention issusceptible of embodiment in many dilferent forms, there is shown in thedrawings and will herein be described in detail a preferred embodimentof the invention, with the understanding that the present disclosure isto be considered as an exemplification of the principles of theinvention and is not intended to limit the invention to the embodimentillustrated. The scope of the invention will be pointed out in theappended claims.

The carrier-casing assembly of the present invention is illustratedgenerally at in FIG. 2, and the assembly 10 includes an elongatedcarrier member 12 and a casing 14 shirred thereon. Carrier member 12 hasa length that is several times its largest diameter, with the length todiameter ratio being from about 5:1 to about 10:1, and preferably about7.5 :1. The carrier member 12 is generally frusto-conically shaped, andits method of manufacture will be best understood by considering FIGS. 4and 5.

Carrier member 12 is made from a thin walled tubular member 12' (FIG. 4)that is formed of a material having an inherent elastic memory,preferably a plastic material, such as polyethylene. While the tube 12'is thin walled, on the order of 10 to 14 mils for polyethylene, it isrigid, as compared to the lirnber and film-like ma terials that are usedin the prior art devices described above to form the loop type casingholders. Typical prior art carriers have a wall thickness of only about2 mills, so that they can readily be formed into the loopedconfiguratiom In contrast, the tube 12 of the persent invention isself-supporting, i.e., the tube will remain rigid if grasped at eitherof its ends.

In order to give the carrier member 12 its frustoconical configuration,tube 12' is slit or severed along a straight line 16 throughout a majorportion of its length. When the edges of the wall of the tube 12' onopposite sides of the line of severance 16 are displaced radially fromone another, the inherent elastic memory that is built into the tube 12'by stretching during the extrusion operation causes one edge 18 of thewall to curl beneath the other edge 20, and provide the taperedconfiguration shown in FIG. 5. Depending upon the specificcharacteristics of the material from which tube 12' is made, the freeend of edge 18 may curl substantially 360, as illustrated in FIG. 5,although a tube with a substantially smaller amount of curl will alsofunction satisfactorily for the purposes of the present invention. Theexposed edge 18 on the inner surface of the carrier member 12 functionsto assist in retaining the carrier member on the stuffing horn of astufiing machine, as will hereinafter appear. Because of the resilientnature of the material, the wall portion adjacent edge 20 is urgedagainst the adjacent wall portion of the carrier member, so that theedge 20 does not present an impediment during deshirring of the casing,as will also hereinafter appear.

The unslit, circumferentially continuous large diameter end 22 of thecarrier member 12 has an inner diameter that is substantially largerthan the outer di ameter of the tip end of the stuffing horn, so thatthe carrier member 12 may be readily placed thereon. The small diametertip portion 24 of the carrier member has an internal diameter that issmaller than the outer diameter adjacent the end of the stufiing born toassist in retaining the carrier member thereon.

With specific reference to FIG. 3, it will be seen that the stufiingborn 26 is a tapered, tubular member, as is conventionally used to'extrude a meat emulsion into a casing. In a typical embodiment, thebase 28 of the stulfing horn has a diameter of approximately 19millimeters, and the tip 30 of the horn has a diameter of approximately11 /2 millimeters. The large diameter end portion 22 of the carriermember may also have an inner diameter of approximately 19 millimeters,so as to be readily positionable over the tip of the stuffing horn 26.The inner diameter of small diameter end portion 24 of the carriermember may be approximately 8 to 10 milimeters, so as to be somewhatsmaller than the outer diameter of the end portion 30 of the stufiinghorn. As as a result, when the carriercasing assembly 10 is telescopedonto the stuffing horn 26, the split end portion of the carrier memberwill spread slightly and the inherent resiliency of the carrier memberwill cause the same to closely conform to the stuffing horn and apply acompressive force thereto. The carrier member 12 has a length that isless than the length of the stufiing horn 26, so that a substantialportion of the stuffing horn, viz inch, extends beyond the end of thecarrier member, as can be seen in FIG. 3. This prevents thecarrier-casing assembly 12 from being dislodged from the stufiing hornduring the deshirring and stuffing operation.

After the carrier member 12 has been formed by slitting the tube 12' inthe aforedescribed manner, the casing 14 is shirred onto the carriermembers and the internal diameter of shirred casing 14 is less than theouter diameter of the large diameter portion 22 of the carrier member12, so that the casing 14 is positively prevented from moving axially tothe right of the carrier member 12, as viewed in FIG. 2. The internaldiameter of shirred casing 14 is preferably larger than the end portion24 of the carrier member, so that the casing can be readily shirredthereon. Ordinarily, the inner diameter of a natural casing varies onlyslightly from one end to the other, so there is no criticality as towhich end of the casing is first shirred onto the carrier member. Ininstances where one end of the casing is noticeably larger than theother, the large diameter end of the casing is first shirred onto thecarrier member.

In order to prevent the casing 14 from moving axially to the left alongcarrier member 12, as viewed in FIG. 2, retention means 32 is placedupon the small diameter portion 24 of the carrier member. Retentionmeans 32 may take the form of a thin, fiat holding member 34 having anaperture 36 therein that is force fit upon the small diameter portion ofthe carrier member to positively retain the casing 14 in place. Theholding member 34 may have any external configuration, as will bereadily understood.

Once the casing 14 has been cleaned, and shirred onto carrier member 12,a plurality of the resulting assemblies may be nested together in ashipping container with the large diameter portions 22 adjacent thesmall diameter portions 24. When it is desired to utilize thecarrier-casing assembly 10, the operator merely removes the assemblyfrom the shipping container, removes the retention member 32 andtelescopes the assembly onto the stuffing horn 26. The wide mouth oflarge diameter portion 22, and the smooth inner surface of the carriermember 12 facilitate the placement of the assembly 10 on the stuflinghorn. As the assembly 10 is moved to the right, as viewed in FIG. 3, thesmall diameter portion 24 of the carrier member 12 is spread outwardly,so that the carrier member applies a positive gripping force ot thestuifing horn. This gripping force, in combination with the exposed edge18, functions to positively retain the assembly 10 in place on thestufl'ing horn 26.

A conventional stufiing machine is shown generally at 40 in FIG. 1, andmachine 40 includes a chamber 42 adapted to receive a meat emulsiontherein. A piston 44 is mounted for vertical movement within chamber 42for forcing the meat emulsion outwardly of an outlet 46 thatcommunicates with the stufiing horn 26. The piston 44 may bepneumatically, or hydraulically actuated, as is shown in the art. As isalso well known in the art, a stufifing valve 48 is provided adjacentthe end of stutfing born 26, so that an operator can manipulate thevalve 48 with one hand while simultaneously paying out the casing 14with the other hand during the stufiing operation. A work table 50 ispreferably provided adjacent the outlet end of the stufiing horn 26 forreceiving the resulting sausage product 52. Depending on the type ofproduct being made, the stuffed casing may be continuous in length, orpass through an automatic linker, as is well known in the art.

While a specific form of stuffing machine has been illustrated anddescribed, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that thecasing-carrier assembly of the present invention has generalapplicability to other types of conventional stuffing machines notspecifically described herein.

What is claimed is:

1. The process of preparing a natural casing for a sausage type productfor stuffing by a sausage manufacturer comprising: providing aself-supporting, tubular carrier member of predetermined length, saidcarrier member being made of a plastic material having an elastic memoryand said tubular member being formed by a process including a stretchingstep to provide a cylindrical thin walled member; severing the wall ofsaid member along its length, whereby the elastic memory of saidmaterial causes a portion of the wall of said member at one side of theline of severance to curl under the portion of the wall of said memberat the other side of said line of severance so that when said carriermember is placed on a tapered stufiing horn it assumes frusto-conicalconfiguration; shirring a natural casing onto said carrier member; andpositively restraining said casing against axial movement in eitherdirection along said carrier member.

2. A casing-carrier assembly comprising: a self-supporting tubularcarrier member formed of a plastic material having an elastic memory,the wall of said carrier member being slit from one end in a straightline along its length to provide edge portions on opposite sides of saidslit, the elastic memory of the material causing the portion of the wallof said member at one side of the line of severance to curl under theportion of the wall of said member at the opposite side of the line ofseverance when one edge portion is displaced from the other, a shirrednatural casing positioned on said carrier member, and means forrestraining said casing against axial movement relative to said carriermember.

3. A casing-carrier assembly as set forth in claim 2 wherein said meansfor retaining said casing against axial movement relative to saidcarrier member includes at least one apertured retention memberforce-fit over one end of said carrier member.

4. A casing-carrier assembly as set forth in claim 2 wherein saidcarrier member is formed of an extruded plastic material.

5. A casing-carrier assembly as set forth in claim 4 wherein saidplastic material is polyethylene.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,148,991 9/1964 Svendsen 99-1751,616,971 2/ 1927 Henderson 99-175 1,938,070 12/1933 Friedler 99-1763,468,413 9/1969 McMillan 99-175 3,115,240 12/ 1963 Flomen et a1. 99-1751,538,460 5/ 1925 Brecht 99-175 1,868,203 7/1932 Henderson et al 99-175FOREIGN PATENTS 677,517 1/1964 Canada 99-175 942,207 11/1963 GreatBritain 99-175 139,862 11/1964 New Zealand 99-175 155,508 2/ 1969 NewZealand 99-175 JOSEPH SCOVRONEK, Primary Examiner S. B. DAVIS, AssistantExaminer US. Cl. X.R.

